Guns and Roses
by Hikari Daeron
Summary: Sometimes life was smoke and thorns, and other times, it was guns and roses. And then there are the occasional mirrors that throw everything off. Matt-centric, for Kelpy.


Me: So, Kelpy and I have found the miraculous invention called the _telephone_. xDD Oh God, she wrote a fic based entirely around an inside joke from a conversation… So did I but it's not posted yet… (laughs) Alright, as always, here's a DN – Matt time.

Third person POV. Matt-centric. Sometimes life was just smoke and thorns, but other times, it was guns and roses. And then there are the mirrors that tend to throw everything off. **Warning: Reveals the real names of Matt and Mello. Rated T for themes and the occasional swearing. Mello especially has a dirty mouth, just fyi.**

**Matt's and Mello's Histories Note: **Both completely made up, down to the last detail. For Mello, I came up with it because he was born in 1990, the brink of the collapse of Soviet Russia (see note bellow). For Matt – well, that's the beauty of Matt as a character. We're given next to nothing about him, so we can mold him to be whatever we want. (I also made up Matt's mother's name.)

**Mello's Ethnic Background Note: **For those of you who know his true name, it seems Russian to me and to many of the authoresses I've discussed DN with/have read. So, he's Russian in this, which plays a role in the death of his parents.

Dedicated to _Angela and MiniMix_, because she's hilarity and one of the few people I'm willing to have a phone convo with and I love her and she's the bestest. xDDDD

Disclaimer: Hikari Daeron sadly does not own Death Note or any affiliations. She also thanks the band Guns and Roses, because she yoinked the title from that name. ALSO: the phrase "mirror-mirror eyes" was totally inspired (coughTAKEN) from RobinRocks and Narroch's _Poison Apple_, although the context is TOTALLY different here.

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_**Guns and Roses**_

Matt didn't often go into gardens. He always felt as if nature was judging him, glaring at him as he flicked ash from the tip of the cigarette. He didn't like the way the flowers were all turned up at him, staring him down as he trekked his way through. It was unnerving.

He also didn't like how the gardeners yelled at him for returning the cigarette buds back to nature. Tobacco and paper both came from the earth in the first place, right? Weren't they biodegradable?

Well, whatever. Matt wasn't a garden person anyway.

He especially didn't like roses (_Briar Rose, her name had such a fatality to it_). He'd gotten quite a few over the years on Valentine's Days, and every single time refused to touch them. (Mello had been more than pissed when he ended up throwing them out. The scratches took a while to heal.) Matt's excuse was that he was "allergic," but they both knew that was bullshit.

"Fuck, Matt, I don't get you. You should just tell them that you don't fucking like roses and to stop sending them to you." And then a switch in advice. "Dammit Matt, just accept them. You're a fucking rose yourself. Fucker."

Even when he was drunk and being obscene, Mello always knew how to hit the right damn spot.

One of the most vivid memories Matt had was of the roses his mother used to get. There was a delicious contrast between her pale fingers and the forest green stem that she'd hold up, between her delicate nose and the deep red that would be pressed to it. Deep, bloody red, reflected in the rich laughter that used to echo (_the fairies blessed her with the gift of song_) around the house whenever she opened the box laying at the foot of the stairs, although every time she knew what they were. And she received them a lot – they appeared so often that Matt often wondered if his father just wanted an excuse to fill the house up with them.

Until, of course, he realized that his dad wasn't the one sending them.

When he found his mother – miraculously, _without _her lover – lying on her bed, her body had looked ironically white and pure. Mirror-mirror eyes looked glossily at the ceiling, pale-pink lips stained rich-red with blood, and a single rose clasped to her still breast, thorns digging into her faded skin. She looked as though she were sleeping (_poor Sleeping Beauty, pricked her finger on a spindle and fell into the deepest of sleeps_).

Matt hadn't touched a rose since, not even when his father was carted off to jail and he was offered a bouquet in condolence.

Mello eventually found out. The redhead had been playing his videogames, as per usual, sucked into another world when he'd been smacked across the forehead by a newspaper. "Lydia Jeevas, poisoned by her husband because she had a lover. You fucker. Why did you hide it from _me_?"

He'd retaliated. The blonde couldn't possibly think that Matt would accept a violation of his past without revenge. "Shot because you were the genius that might have saved the Union and your mother refused to give you up? Well congratulations Mihael Keehl. You must be so proud."

He'd gotten a black eye for that remark.

_This is the story of the smoke that pervaded the room after the cigarettes were put out._

That was all years ago, of course. Now, Matt was nearing his twentieth (_not sixteenth, no, because sixteenth was such a fatal year for the poor, pretty princess_) birthday and utterly alone.

In mid-October, Matt's father had been released from prison. Parole or good behaviour or some crap like that had let him off with a probation officer. Roger had called Matt and told him; with some cajoling he'd convinced him to go track him down. Expecting to meet him at the jail, he was instead forced to trek his footsteps until he arrived at his old house.

Matt had had mixed feelings about everything – for one thing, he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to see his father in the first place. For another, he didn't really want to go back to the house again. He'd spent those years at Wammy's trying to effectively remove as many of those memories as possible. (He'd failed, of course, but definitely with an A for effort.)

_This is the story of the lights that flashed out one by one._

The house was covered in weeds and vines (_the castle had been overgrown too, and the Prince had to hack through it_), overgrown and uncared for. After the lady of the residence has died, the servants had upped and left and Matt – still known as Mail then – was given to various relatives until Quillsh Wammy had found him. His father, destroyed by the memory of a wife who had either not loved him or gotten tired of him, hadn't bothered to leave instructions on caring for it while he spent time in jail.

Matt had entered the house warily, and found that in the over ten years of his absence, nothing had changed. That had freaked him out a bit, but logically, it made sense.

He'd trekked through the house, reliving memories he was surprised he still had. Every now and then he'd be shocked into one of the repressed nightmares of his youth and stagger out, trying to find a way to breath in the suffocating smoke of sin that still choked the house.

_This is the story of a boy who watched his whole world burn._

Hesitantly, he went to his old bedroom. He wasn't sure what he felt when he saw the white-washed walls and completely empty room. Nothing remained to connect him to it. Gone was the sign proudly proclaiming _Mail's Room! _that he had made when he was three; gone were the posters and pictures and games and clothes and _there wasn't a single thing to show that he had existed_. Not a picture of him, not an article of clothing or even his favourite stuffed dragon (_Malificent took many forms, her true one the most terrifying to them all_) to show. The things that had epitomized Mail Jeevas's childhood had _disappeared_.

At that very moment, Matt had realized that he _wasn't _Mail anymore. He was Matt – not 'Matthew', not 'Matt Wammy' – just Matt.

_This is a story of dead roses and mirror-mirror eyes._

It hadn't taken long to find his father. Driven mad by grief, Jeevas senior had taken a gun to his head moments after he'd found his way back "home". Lying on the crisp white sheets in the room and in fact very bed where Lydia had been found, he looked very stretched and thin, the only thing making him human the shockingly contrasting blood that he lay in.

Matt had watched him for a while, half-expecting him to take a shuddering breath and sit up, to suddenly revive from his deep slumber (_after all, hadn't the kingdom been put under a spell of deep sleep for a hundred years?_). But no, his father had lay at last physically dead, his heart and soul having died years previously.

He couldn't say that he really cared.

_This is a story of razor-sharp thorns and smooth pale skin._

Matt didn't like going into gardens, he really didn't. Sitting on a bench on a cool November's day, he wondered what Mello was doing, where he was. He'd stormed out four years ago in his desperate search for Kira and revenge for L. Because that was the more important thing to Mello, after all – becoming the next L. Chocolate and kisses and roses were just another way for him to get to that next step.

"For someone who hates gardens, you sure come here a lot," observed a cool voice.

Matt twisted around and saw the last person he expected and the first person he wanted. "_Mello_! Where the – how the – what happened to your _face_?"

Standing before him in leathered glory was the magnificent blonde, piercing eyes surveying the redhead. He'd acquired something new since their last encounter, besides the new wardrobe and the gun buried in the front of his pants: a macabre scar ravaged half his face, paying tribute to the literally explosive encounter barely a week beforehand. But Matt hadn't known about that, and hearing the story from Mello's lips (_pale lips, kissable lips, hadn't Sleeping Beauty had the same?_) had sounded almost unbelievable.

"But why – but…" Matt gaped. "_Why didn't you call me earlier?_"

Mello shrugged and took a bite of chocolate. "Matt, you never reveal your thorns until the last minute. How could I get you mixed-up in a war you never wanted to fight?"

The gamer opened his mouth, closed it, and sighed. "Yeah… I guess you're right…" He ruffled his hair and stared up at the blonde. "Dammit Mello, don't leave me behind again."

Mello leaned up on the wall, coolly looking out at the dry garden and crumbling maze facing them. He brought the bar to his lips almost automatically, the resounding '_snap_!' echoing in the still air. "I wasn't planning on it." A slightly breeze picked up, a mist settling over the empty garden. Through foggy goggles Matt made out the tongue flickering over the grooves of the chocolate, mirroring (_on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?_) the vines that caressed the wall behind him. There was something about the stillness and the hazy outline that was Mello that made Matt see a sort of Briar Rose in him: blonde hair and deep blue-green eyes; a small, curved body; long fingers daintily holding (_no not the apple but -_) the bar; and a determination (_hadn't it been of her own will to discover the secrets of the spindle?_) that clung to him like a cloak. The remarkable physical thing about Mello was his uncanny resemblance to a girl, that his hair – chin length, straight, silky (_but surprisingly not black, had it been that then the image would have been complete_) – framed an elegant face and that his body was small enough for any manner of princes to want to hold.

The solemn voice broke the silence: "I need your help, if you haven't fallen apart too much to offer it."

Matt blinked up at him, watching as the wind lifted tendrils of the straight, layered hair. "You… need me?"

"Yeah, you stupid rose." He wasn't looking at him. "Yeah, I need you. And from the looks of it, you're in need of a bit of saving yourself."

Matt looked at him, the cigarette hanging limply from his lips. The ash collected and fell from the tip as his lip shook slightly, collecting onto his shirt. He didn't bother to brush it away. Instead, he said, "Then where the hell's my prince, Mello? Where the hell is my goddamn prince?"

_This is a story of hand-clasped throats and staggering breaths._

Matt confused the fairy tales. While he was trying to find his sleeping beauty, it was in fact the fairest in the land he should have been chasing. He should have checked with the hunter who brought him the heart. He should have poisoned the apple. Instead, he hacked through the briars, so close to her name, and ran to find the beauty who had pricked her finger and fallen into the deepest of sleeps. In the end, he was the wrong prince, the wrong queen, the wrong _story_.

Snow White was placed in a coffin of glass for the world to look upon her beauty and mourn. Matt was placed in one too, but unlike her, he never woke up.

_And maybe this is also the story of muffled screams and desperate attempts to break free._

"I'm sorry Matt… I never meant for you to be killed."

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Special thanks to Shadow over Egypt for betaing.


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